My “favorite” conspiracy is the various forms of “Radiation Allergy” because the ignorance just bugs me to no end. Basically these are the people that claim some sort of allergy or sensitivity to WiFi, cell signals, microwaves (the appliances), etc. Granted, standing in front of a microwave emitter on a cell tower or other industrial-strength transmitters will cook you. However, all that stuff is up on towers and the radiation concentrations are dispersed long before they get to you and anyway these people generally complain about mundane household stuff.
I wish I had better memory to properly recount stories from all the times I’ve looked into conspiracy theories for fun. But I think my favourite might just be alien mythos. KGB alien manual with over hundred species. How Nordic aliens are just white people and obviously benevolent. How ancient PoC couldn’t possibly have built their monuments alone and got help from aliens. It’s, uhh, pretty obvious what people believing this stuff think about the world’s peoples.
I also get a kick out of people not understanding how cameras work and thinking visual artefacts are UFOs or even fucking planets on crash course (see Nibiru).
Oh and there’s the specific theory of “we went to the moon but it was to find aliens” and uhh. There’s some weird recordings from Apollo and Gemini programs. Nothing that’d actually suggest conspiracy, of course, just weird stuff. And I like weird stuff.
I wasted an entire night reading the Time Cube page in high school cause I thought it was hilarious and I have never forgotten it.
We have these nutjobs here in Germany who call themselves “Reichsbürger” (citizens of the Reich). These particular wackos believe that the german constitution (aka the “Grundgesetz”) does not count for them because they believe that Germany is still occupied by allied forces. Yes, really. Yes, despite the fact that the last US and british troops stationed in Germany (aside from the american military airport at Ramstein, which is a courtesy of the german government to the US) were withdrawn in the 1990s.
Having that mindset, they argue that the german constitution is illegal, because they believe it to be not a constition, but a set of rules put in place by the allied forces and thus an oppressive instrument of an occupying force. Which, y’know, makes total sense, especially since the first fucking article of that constitution is “Die Würde des Menschen ist unantastbar.” (The dignity of man is untouchable). So yeah, super oppressive, that.
Anyway, so since these idiots believe the constition of the FDR to be illegal (and in fact deny the existance of the FDR), they alternatively pledge themselves to adhere to the constitions of 1871 (crowning of emperor Wilhelm I after the war with france) or 1918 (constition of the Weimar republic), or sometimes even 1934 (Hitler totalitarianism, disbanding the Weimar constitution). They go as far as electing their own chancellors, printing their own money, creating their own legal paperwork (including driving and gun licenses, which is especially crazy because guns are super restricted in Germany) and - of course - putting all their bullshit up on youtube. This of course gets them in trouble with the actual law on a fairly regular basis.
Now, one might assume that these guys are just kind of harmless wackos who play government in their own little brain world. And that might be the case for a few of them, but others are actually very dangerous psychopaths. Since they don’t respect applicable law, they are quite often armed. In fact, at least two german cops were shot by Reichsbürger just last year in an incident where the cops were ordered to dispossess one of them because he hadn’t payed any taxes, and at least one of them died of his injuries. There were similar incidents in the last two years, so now police are cracking down pretty hard on these guys, cause they kinda don’t like getting shot at by morons who don’t respect the law. They are also constantly sued and fined/imprisoned for contempt of court, because obviouly legal german courts are an oppressive instrument of the allied forces and thus not to be respected.
If you’re interested, I can link you to a whole bunch of news articles or even the talk of the “elected” “Reichskanzler” and vice chancellor on youtube. Obviously, that stuff is in german. Might still be funny to watch two kooky old guys ramble on about 150 year old laws while wearing ridiculous made up insignia.
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I remember in high school the number of people that thought science was evil because humans used to live longer and now they only live to be about 80 on average. As I soon found out a number of people in my school thought that Aragorn was a biblical character and that LOTR was genuine christian literature.
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Another podcast of interest - Blurry Photos. (Which our very own @Ironicus has guested on.)
The high point episode for conspiracy theory wackiness is Flat Earth Theory. Which is also my favourite modern conspiracy theory just because of how suddenly widespread it’s become and how incredibly dumb it is.
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Unfortunately I grew up around family obsessed with conspiracy theories, so I’ve heard my fair share of bullshit from Darren Brownfield, Alex Jones, Joseph Watson, etc.
That said, I “fondly” remember the summer of 2002 when my dad picked up on the Nibiru scare, bought a book that was basically planet-x gospel, and TERRIFIED THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF ME. I spent most of that summer depressed and scared thinking the world was going to end.
But haha, it didn’t and now I’m permanently inoculated to this shit.
By the way they’re still releasing fake nasa reports and lying about internal CDC memos in order to scaremonger, there’s even a huge 2017 update by someone opposed to the recent Nibiru “reports” but in favor of the Ancient Astronaut theory that basically states we were visited by aliens in ancient time and they influenced our culture.
Also since their source material is so prone to fluctuation, naturally they can’t even come to an agreement on when it’s going to happen this year. 
Oh my god it’s a German version of sovereign citizens/freemen on the land. They’re one of my favorite bits of nonsense outside of alt-med crap when they’re just spouting utterly bizarre interpretations of law and the like - if only that was all they stuck to.
I’d forgotten sovereign citizens existed until this post reminded me of them. Oh lord; sovereign citizens exist!
…oh lord; our resident white nationalist party elected one to the senate! And he believes NASA, the UN and “international bankers” are conspiring to rule the world through climate science! screams forever
Is there any sort of consistent age among these Reichsbergers? Or is it something any disaffected person can hitch themselves to?
So which Republican is he? :V
I’m Australian! Our Republicans are the ones who want to break away from the monarchy and have a commoner as head of state.
On my commute in Toronto, each day I would pass by a billboard that I can charitably describe as “promoting awareness” of the very real and very serious issue of Chem-Trails. Something along the lines of “Look Up! Smile, You Are Being Dosed!” Though the only lasting lesson for me was that fringe conspiracy theories have larger budgets than I thought.
I should probably add what chemtrails are: the trails that airliners leave behind aren’t exhaust or condensation; they are a potent mix of chemicals being deliberately dumped on people for a very sinister but totally unknown reason. Chemtrails are one of those conspiracy theories that often appears in support of other theories, in that they are a part of the Illuminati plan for chemical-based genocide for Nibiru to delay human evolution.
That sounds exactly like what 
BIG PHARMA would want me to believe! As an avid truth-seeker, I will read between the lines and put everything in my butt.
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Oh, sorry. You said NASA so I guessed America.
My favorite thing about a lot of conspiracy theorists is how hard they work to avoid the obvious in order to show off the super-duper secret symbolism that only they were smart enough to notice.
For example, a few years back Jim Carrey hosted SNL. I was watching one of the skits he did, and in the recommended videos I noticed this video in particular, "Jim Carrey SNL Illuminati Freemason Symbolism."
I’ll save you the trouble of watching all seven minutes of it, it’s your bog-standard conspiracy talk. Jim Carrey comes out, starts talking about pie, which matches up with the bible and an Egyptian glyph of Akhenaton. Jim Carrey dressed up like “Hellvis” for Halloween, a hybrid of Elvis and the Devil. Hybrid=A blend of heavenly and earthly realms together, sign of the end times. Iggy Azalea was the musical guest, she performed her song “Beg for It,” “IT” being the end times. Also there’s some triangles because of course there are. Lunacy, all of it.
You know what other proof of Jim Carrey being in the Illuminati there is?
From the SAME GODDAMN EPISODE.
I’ve always been a fan of Hollow Earth
No no, not “Journey to the Center of the Earth”-style hollow. This-style hollow:
I love it because it combines a lot of the stupidity of the flat Earth theory, with the added twist that it’s apparently a shorter trip to get to any other planet in the solar system than it is to get to the other side of the globe.
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No apologies necessary; it was a good gag! I don’t know why Senator Malcolm-Ieuan: Roberts., the living soul, decided that NASA were the ones behind the conspiracy, but he did. He was elected on the One Nation ticket - a party are either in the news every week because one of their candidates said that homosexual refugee single mothers cause hurricanes (or whatever), or forgotten about completely because their leader’s in prison again. Depends what year it is.
Knowing Australia, this is almost certainly not comedic hyperbole.
I’d never heard of them before. I looked up some more information on the Reichsbürger, and there’s a subgroup of them called “Selbstverwalter” (something like self-administrator), who fit exactly that description. They believe that through some sort of declaration, they can opt out of the FRG, so they are not subject to the FRGs laws anymore. Honestly, reading about these weirdos a bit more, at least some of them, it seems, are kooky people in financial trouble, and they believe that this way they might get around paying their debts.
From what I can tell based on the limited research I did on this, most of them seem to be older men, but quite a few younger rightwing extremists and particularly Neonazis are involved as well. Among them are a substantial amount of holocaust deniers (which is in fact illegal in Germany and will eventually get you into prison), and more or less all of them are racists. Some of them even argue that Germany still has colonies in Africa. So in general, it’s pretty much an exlusively extremist far-right phenomenon. Luckily, there are not many of these guys around in general. Germany has more of a problem with Neonazis than with these guys, and there aren’t even that many Neonazis.